The present invention relates generally to telecommunications services and more particularly to caller identification.
Telecommunications service providers typically offer services that attempt to provide customers with information that enables them to determine whether or not to accept a call before answering the call. One service that provides such information is caller identification (“Caller ID”). Standard Caller ID services generally provide a customer with an indication of who is calling without requiring the customer to answer the call. These systems typically retrieve information about the calling party from a database and provide that information to the called party. Customer premise equipment (CPE) in the form of a display device is generally used to provide the called party with a visual readout of the name and/or telephone number associated with the calling party.
However, the effectiveness of Caller ID systems can be reduced due to a number of different occurrences. One such occurrence is the inability of a service provider to provide the standard Caller ID information for a particular incoming call. A service provider may not be able to provide the standard Caller ID information if the Caller ID information is blocked by the calling party, or if the Caller ID information is unavailable or incomplete. Also, the service provider may not be able to provide the standard Caller ID information if the call is marked “Private,” indicating that the calling party has taken steps to suppress transmission of Caller ID information. This may be done, for example, by pressing *67 when initiating a call
When the standard Caller ID information cannot be provided, the called party is not adequately informed about who is calling and cannot determine whether or not to accept the incoming call before answering the call. Because the effectiveness of Caller ID systems is greatly reduced when information cannot be provided, an improved system and method for providing caller identification information that overcome these deficiencies are needed.
Patent application Ser. No. 09/122,484, filed Jul. 24, 1998 and commonly assigned to the assignee of the present application, is incorporated herein by reference. This patent application discloses a method and system for providing a called party with audible caller identification information when standard caller identification cannot be provided. When standard caller identification cannot be provided, the call is blocked and a request for audible caller identification is transmitted to the calling party. The audible information is subsequently transmitted to the called party.
The effectiveness of this system is limited in telecommunication systems which provide per line blocking of Caller ID information. When per line blocking is activated for a subscriber line, the Caller ID information for that line is never transmitted by the system. However, the system described in patent application Ser. No. 09/122,484 requires communication of the called party's identification information among the equipment of the system for proper operation. If per line blocking is present, the disclosed system can not process the call. Customers who have selected per line blocking, for privacy or other purposes, can not use the described caller identification system of patent application Ser. No. 09/122,484.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method which permits provision of either text or audible caller identification information even to a customer who subscribes to a per line blocking service.